Tempest: Star Wars (Legacy of the Force) (Star Wars: Legacy of the Force)

by Troy Denning

  “Wonderful,” Leia said. Trying to keep her sigh of relief relatively inaudible, she went to the multiprocessor and prepared a tray with the two savory-smelling gorba melts and Nashtah’s four defrosted steaks. “Would you like something to drink, Nashtah?”

  “Not necessary,” the assassin said. “But I will need an empty glass.”

  Resisting the temptation to ask why, Leia added the empty glass to the tray, then returned to the table and distributed its contents.

  To Leia’s astonishment, Nashtah took one of the raw nerf steaks and rolled it tight. Holding it over the empty glass, the assassin wrapped her long fingers around the meat and sank her sharp nails into it, then carefully squeezed the blood out.

  Suddenly Leia’s gorba melt no longer smelled quite so savory.

  Nashtah smiled at Leia’s obvious look of revulsion, then said, “I saw your father race once.”

  “Race?” Han echoed. Though his eyes were fixed on Nashtah’s slowly filling glass, he was gobbling down his sandwich and had to speak around a full mouth. “You mean Podrace?”

  “Yes. It was the Boonta Eve Classic. He was good … very good.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Leia found herself feeling resentful of Nashtah. As much as she still hated the memory of Darth Vader, over the years she had come to think of her father as the little boy she had glimpsed in her grandmother’s vid-diary, and it seemed somehow unfair that this assassin had been there at the high point of his life when all Leia had known were the low ones. “He won, I believe.”

  “That’s right. It was when he earned his freedom.” Nashtah put the shriveled steak aside, then took a drink from the glass and smacked her lips in approval. “Do you know what always amazed me about that race?”

  “Wait a minute.” Han swallowed a mouthful of gorba melt. “You expect us to believe you were there?”

  “I believe her, Han.” Leia pushed her uneaten gorba melt aside, then asked, “What amazed you, Nashtah?”

  “That he didn’t cheat,” she replied. “All that natural Force ability, and he ran an honest race in a contest that has no rules.”

  “Your point?” Leia asked.

  Nashtah gulped down the contents of her glass, then picked up another steak and began to refill it. “Do I need to have a point?”

  “Yeah.” Han scowled. “It helps move the conversation along.”

  Nashtah arched her brow—somehow making even that simple gesture seem menacing.

  “Then I suppose my point is this.” The steak made a soft bursting noise as she tightened her grasp, forcing all the juice from it at once. Nashtah looked back to Leia. “Your father was as full of surprises as you are. I suppose I do believe your story.”

  “Good.” Leia started to reach for her vitajuice, then caught a glimpse of what was in Nashtah’s glass and thought better of it. “Then I hope you’ll allow us to take you wherever you need to go.”

  Nashtah nodded. “Telkur Station.”

  “Telkur Station?” Han asked doubtfully. “You expect us to believe a bunch of pirates hired you?”

  Nashtah eyed Han coldly. “Did I say we were going to meet my employers?”

  chapter thirteen

  The pincer-shaped silhouettes of a dozen Miy’til starfighters rose above the hill behind Villa Solis, then shot skyward on pillars of blue efflux. Jaina craned her neck, watching in silence as the fighter squadron arced toward a cluster of bright points already drifting across Terephon’s night sky. She estimated the number of points at nearly thirty, and even as she watched they were arranging themselves into the open-diamond formation of a battle fleet deploying for a jump to hyperspace.

  “Something’s just not right about that,” she said, still looking at the fleet. Having been denied hangar access by the flight chief, she and Zekk had landed outside the front gate only a short time before. “We’re supposed to be the ones delivering mobilization orders for Tenel Ka. To ready a fleet this fast, Ducha Galney would have had to know about the coup attempt before we left Hapes.”

  “Well, her sister is Tenel Ka’s chamberlain.” Zekk was referring to the haughty Lady Galney, who had seemed so convinced in the aftermath of the coup attempt that Jaina’s parents had participated in the attack. “Maybe Lady Galney told the Ducha what happened.”

  “How?” Jaina asked. “Terephon is in the Transitory Mists. There’s no HoloNet here, remember?”

  Zekk merely grunted and turned to study the spiketopped domes rising above the villa wall. Jaina did not need the Force to tell her that he was less interested in the villa’s simple architecture than in avoiding a conversation with her. During the long and complicated journey from Hapes, he had allowed no more Force contact than was necessary to coordinate their hyperspace jumps, and his only words so far had been about seeing the Ducha.

  Jaina grabbed his arm and turned him to look at her. “Look, we’ve got a mission to do. So whatever’s kinking your air hose—get over it!”

  Zekk pulled his arm away, but spoke in a mild voice. “I think I am over it.”

  “Good,” Jaina said. Then she frowned, realizing that for the first time in years, she had no idea what Zekk meant. “Over what, exactly?”

  “Jaina, stop,” Zekk said. “You don’t do coy very well.”

  “Coy?” Now Jaina was really confused. She could almost always tell what Zekk was thinking—at least until now. “Zekk, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I really don’t.”

  Zekk studied her a moment, then arched his dark brows. “Come on—we’re not that un-Joined.” He shook his head. “You’ve wanted this for years. Stop hiding from it.”

  He secured his StealthX and started toward the villa, leaving Jaina alone. She was so accustomed to his blind approval that she could not quite believe he was talking to her as though she were a spoiled little girl. She returned in her mind to the last time things had seemed normal between them, shortly after they had arrived at the Fountain Palace and discovered that her parents were suspected of involvement in the coup attempt.

  Zekk had tried to comfort her, suggesting that assassination just was not her parents’ style, and she had snapped at him. He had stalked off to the other side of the room, and though he had continued to defend her parents to Tenel Ka and Prince Isolder, toward her he had remained silent and withdrawn.

  “By the Force!” Jaina secured her own StealthX and caught up to him. “Is that what this is about? What I said in the sitting room? I was worried about my parents! You can’t hold that against me.”

  “I don’t,” Zekk replied. “I just finally realized what …” He caught himself and softened his tone. “Look, Jaina, I just realized that you’ve been right all along. We’re better as friends than we would ever be as lovers. I know you’ve been saying it for years, but I guess part of me really didn’t believe it until now.”

  Jaina was so astonished that she stopped walking and simply stood there staring at Zekk’s broad back. She had broken off their romance when they were teenagers, and she had been trying to get him to stop pursuing her ever since. So why did it suddenly feel like she had lost something?

  Now that she understood what had happened, Jaina realized she could still feel Zekk’s presence in the back of her mind. He was strong and certain and independent … and so over her. He had finally granted her wish.

  And that was a good thing—it really was.

  Jaina hurried to catch up, then fell in at Zekk’s side. “It’s about time,” she grumbled. “Now maybe I can stop waiting until you’re asleep to take my sanisteams.”

  Zekk laughed. “It didn’t work anyway,” he said. “I kept having these dreams …”

  “You did?” Jaina glanced over to find a mischievous glint in Zekk’s eye, but now that she had located their connection again, she knew he was telling the truth. “And you didn’t say anything?”

  Zekk shrugged and flashed an embarrassed grin. “I thought they were just … well, dreams.”

  Jaina started to accept his explanation, the
n had the sudden realization that he was mocking her.

  “Liar!” She punched him in the shoulder. “Let’s just deliver Tenel Ka’s message.”

  “Sure,” Zekk chuckled. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do.”

  Jaina strode ahead, taking the lead as they crossed the last few meters to the gate. Villa Solis was a cluster of squat round buildings, constructed of white gratenite and located in the heart of the planet’s remote moorlands. It was surrounded by two hundred kilometers of bog country, and the only practical way to reach it was by air. All in all, it was one of the most isolated and inaccessible retreats Jaina had ever visited—but she supposed that was the point. Lady Galney had warned them that the only thing her sister the Ducha enjoyed more than privacy was hunting, and there would certainly be plenty of both available at Villa Solis.

  As they drew nearer, Jaina kept expecting a panel to slide open in the tarnished crodium gate so a sentry—or at least a security droid—could issue a challenge. But the villa remained eerily silent, with nothing stirring but the dank bog breeze.

  “Too quiet,” Zekk said. “They must know we’re here.”

  “Yeah,” Jaina said. As elusive as StealthXs were, even they created a sonic boom when they sliced down through an atmosphere at many times the local speed of sound. “Maybe we scared ’em.”

  Once they had stopped in front of the gates, a brass-sheathed tentacle shot up to each side of them. Jaina and Zekk both snapped the lightsabers off their belts and pivoted so they were standing back-to-back, and Jaina found herself looking into the bobbing, dark blue lens of a Serv-O-Droid gatekeeper’s eye pod.

  “You have one minute to leave the essstate.” The gatekeeper’s voice—emitted by a small vocabulator hidden behind its eye pod—had been customized to sound sibilant and menacing. “Failure to obey will be dealt with harshly.”

  “We’re here with a message for the Ducha,” Jaina replied.

  “You’re not on the schedule.” It was the gatekeeper on Zekk’s side that spoke this time, in a voice that was sugary and feminine. “You should have requested an appointment.”

  “How?” Zekk asked. “The HoloNet doesn’t reach Terephon.”

  “Our message is from Queen Mother Tenel Ka,” Jaina added. “It’s important.”

  “Then you’ll have to make an appointment and return when you’re on the sssschedule,” the first gatekeeper said. “The Ducha is not in residence at thissss time.”

  Jaina frowned. “The Royal Intelligence Service says she is,” she retorted. “And they haven’t been wrong about the whereabouts of any of the other nobles we’ve visited.”

  The two gatekeepers reared back on their motility tentacles. “You have thirty secondsss to depart,” the first said. In a sweet voice, the second added, “Termination procedures are already under prepar—”

  Jaina activated her lightsaber in the same instant Zekk’s blade snapped to life. They lashed out together, not so much slicing through the eye pods as incinerating them, then reversed their strokes in perfect unison, cut the motility tentacles off at the ground, and pivoted to face the gate.

  “Better mission partners than we would be lovers, too,” Jaina observed.

  “No surprise,” Zekk grunted. “We’ve actually been on missions together.”

  When the attack the gatekeepers had threatened did not materialize, Jaina asked, “Why would the Ducha be so reluctant to hear a message from Tenel Ka?”

  “Don’t know,” Zekk said. “Guess we’ll have to ask her when we track her down.”

  Jaina glanced up into the night sky, eyeing the bright flecks of the Ducha’s gathering fleet. “I think there are a couple of things we’ll need to ask her about.”

  She reached out in the Force and was a little surprised to feel only a single sentient presence on the other side of the gate.

  “Open up!” she demanded. “We’re not here to hurt anyone.”

  There was no response.

  After a moment, Zekk glanced at Jaina and cocked a questioning brow. Jaina shrugged and stepped into position behind him, prepared to counter any attacks they were about to draw. Zekk plunged his lightsaber into the seam where the gate met the wall, then began to drag the blade slowly downward, cutting the internal locking bars.

  A muffled voice sounded from the other side. “Stop!”

  They heard a loud clunk, then the gate retracted into the wall with a pneumatic whoosh. On the other side stood a brawny, moon-faced woman wearing a grimy leather apron over a much-stained tunic. Her eyes were narrow and puffy, her nose was wide and flat, and her thick lips were curled into a permanent sneer. All in all, she was probably the ugliest Hapan whom Jaina had ever seen.

  The woman frowned at Jaina. “It wasn’t necessary to have your man cut the Ducha’s gate,” she said. “I would have let you in.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have taken so long to make up your mind.” Jaina deactivated her lightsaber, but continued to glare at the woman. “What’s your name?”

  “Entora,” the woman replied. “Entora Zar.”

  “Well, Entora,” Jaina said, “the next time a Jedi Knight addresses you, you might want to answer.”

  She and Zekk stepped through the gate into an eye-boggling mass of domed, white-gratenite structures, packed so tightly that at first glance it looked impossible to squeeze between them. Every window was shuttered, every door closed, and, aside from the ugly woman, there was no one in sight.

  Jaina extended her Force-awareness a few dozen meters deeper into the compound and felt only the furtive presences of tiny vermin creatures.

  “Where is everyone?” Zekk demanded.

  “Gone,” Zar said. “Your poor piloting was an affront to the Ducha’s sensibilities.”

  Jaina was too astonished by Zar’s audacity to be offended. “Our piloting?”

  “Your entry angle was too steep,” Zar said. “You couldn’t decelerate fast enough to make a graceful approach. I’m surprised you didn’t rip your wings off.”

  “We weren’t trying to make a graceful approach,” Jaina said through gritted teeth. “And I don’t recall asking your opinion.”

  “Our craft have unique flight characteristics,” Zekk explained. “They don’t handle like XJ-Sevens, especially in the atmosphere.”

  “I doubt you could do any better with an XJ-Seven,” Zar replied. “You obviously need more simulator time in anything you fly.”

  This was too much for Jaina. “Listen, rodder, I started flying XJs into combat before I was old enough to sign my own contracts. How many hours have you logged?”

  “In an XJ?”

  “No, in a pedal car!” Jaina retorted. “Of course in an XJ.”

  Zar looked away. “None, actually.”

  “None?” Jaina could not believe what she was hearing; no decent pilot would presume to know the proper atmospheric entry angle for a craft she’d never flown. “Then what do you fly?”

  “A lot of different stuff,” Zar answered with pride. “The Naboo Royal N-One, the Mark One Headhunter, the Xi Char DFS—”

  “Those are antiques, not starfighters!” Jaina objected.

  “And the DFS was a droid fighter,” Zekk said, scowling suspiciously. “Where have you been flying those craft?”

  Zar glared at Zekk, clearly offended that a mere male would dare question her credentials. “The same place I do all my flying,” she said. “On my holosimulator. I’m a rated instructor.”

  Jaina’s jaw dropped. “Are you crazy? There’s a …” She felt a Force-nudge from Zekk and realized that she was allowing herself to be distracted by what was at best an irrelevancy and at worst an intentional delaying tactic. “Never mind. Just take us to the Ducha.”

  But Zar wasn’t ready to drop the holosimulator debate. “In fact, I’m probably a better pilot than you, since my unit—”

  “You’re not,” Jaina interrupted. “And we’re done arguing about it.”

  Jaina pushed past on one side and Zekk on the other, both ignori
ng Zar’s protests that they had no permission. As the daughter of a famous stateswoman, Jaina had learned early that it was always best to ignore blowhards and idiots.

  There were no human presences in any of the nearby buildings. Jaina extended her Force-awareness deeper into the villa and was surprised to feel nothing there, either. But when she reached beyond the compound itself into the surrounding area, she did detect a knot of frightened people deep under the hill, in the vicinity of the villa’s underground hangar.

  “You feel that?” Jaina asked Zekk. “They’re hiding from us.”

  Zekk nodded. “Probably an emergency shelter under the hill with the hangar.”

  “That would make sense,” Jaina said. “But why would they be afraid of us?”

  Zekk shrugged. “Guess we’ll have to ask them.”

  He did not bring up the possibility of asking Zar, and Jaina did not suggest it. Another conversation with the woman would only cause further delay, and Jaina doubted they would learn anything useful. Zar was hardly the type of woman a shrewd Hapan noble would trust with any information not meant to deceive.

  They continued deeper into the villa, with Zar trailing along and protesting. Now and again a mouse droid zipped across a nearby intersection, and once they came across a cleaning droid carefully polishing the gratenite blocks that paved the walkway. Otherwise, the interior of the villa remained as deserted as the entrance had been.

  Given that the buildings were all locked and they were simply here to deliver a message, Jaina refrained from breaking in. But from the evidence she noticed as they passed—scarred door frames, an outdoor roasting pit, the sour smell of tanning vats—the villa certainly appeared to be the favorite hunting retreat of a very wealthy noble. The only odd part was that the Ducha would feel compelled to take her entire household into hiding because two Jedi had arrived with a message from Tenel Ka.

  A few moments later, they reached the hill at the back of the compound, where an artificial cliff indicated the source of the gratenite that had been used to build Villa Solis. A pair of white towers stood tight against the cliff, one on each side of a large pit. The pit was surrounded by a chest-high wall, and from its interior rose a faint stench of decay and muskiness.